Up is Down

The Center for American Progress has some interesting documentation of Bush's "war on terror" (or, as the case is increasingly appearing to be, lack thereof). I realize that we can't jump into a time machine and prevent 9/11, and yes, there is a certain amount of 20/20 hindsight happening here. But nonetheless, is it so outrageous to expect the Bush administration to step up and say, yes, we goofed. We made some bad intelligence decisions that seemed ok at the time, but in hindsight, were a mistake. Oh wait, that would be expecting personal responsibility from the childish administration that's only interested in scape-goating and misdirection. Silly me.

"The Bush Administration actually reversed the Clinton Administration's strong emphasis on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Attorney General John Ashcroft not only moved aggressively to reduce DoJ's anti-terrorist budget but also shift DoJ's mission in spirit to emphasize its role as a domestic police force and anti-drug force. These changes in mission were just as critical as the budget changes, with Ashcroft, in effect, guiding the day to day decisions made by field officers and agents. And all of this while the Administration was receiving repeated warnings about potential terrorist attacks."

-snip-

"4/6/00 – DoJ Budget Goals Memo: Official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Janet Reno to department heads dated 4/6/2000 detailing how counterterrorism is her top priority for the Department of Justice. In the second paragraph, she states, "In the near term as well as the future, cybercrime and counterterrrorism are going to be the most challenging threats in the criminal justice area. Nowhere is the need for an up-to-date human and technical infrastructure more critical."

5/10/01 – Ashcroft New DoJ Budget Goals Memo: Official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Ashcroft dated 5/10/2001 (directly compares to the 4/6/2000 Reno memo). Out of 7 strategic goals described, not one mentions counterterrorism, a serious departure from Reno."

Budget documents available from the link above show "...that Ashcroft was planning to ignore the FBI's specific requests for more translators, counterintelligence agents and researchers, mentioned above. It additionally shows Ashcroft was trying to slash funding from counterterrorism and grants and other homeland defense programs before 9/11." Even post 9/11 budget documents indicate that Ashcroft was providing significantly less funding for counterterrorism efforts than the FBI requested.

I'm not saying that Ashcroft made the wrong decisions at the time (although personally I think he did, I am clearly not an intelligence or security expert) the point I'm trying to make is that this party line about receiving faulty intelligence and trying to blame anyone other than themselves for the current mess we're in is complete and total hogwash. It should be criminal that the American public is continuously fed this lie.